Pre-flight briefing

The links on this page are to free access web sites that do not require you to register or login except where noted.

Weather conditions

1. Pick a suitable forecast site from Weatherjack's weather data and use it to see if the day is likely to be suitable for what you have in mind. If you're in England south of the Pennines, you have other choices, which include:
   • GlideMet for the Bicester weather summary. Updates are decidedly infrequent, but the links on the left of the page are useful.
   • London Gliding Club's forecast. There is usually one every day, but poor days may be skipped.
   • David Masson's Lasham weather briefing. David only does a forecast if the following day looks promising and he has time.
2. Check the synoptic charts and/or look at METARs to get an idea of wind strength, direction, and how good the day is likely to be. Use your favourite site:
   • AvBrief (free login access to 5 day synoptics and forms 214 and 215, subscription for additional services).
   • Decode METARs from Worldwide TAFs & METARs selected from the Avbrief Weather page.
     This opens in a new window so you can cut and paste between Avbrief and it.
   • Weatherjack's weather data page has lots of links to forecasts, satellite images, webcams etc.
   • XC Weather. shows current weather in a graphical map format. Each wind arrow is associated with an airfield that provides METAR information. Hover the cursor over a wind arrow to see the decoded METARs and forecasts in the right margin. This site will be opened in a new window.
3. If there's a chance of heavy cloud, look at the satellite images to see what is in store:
   • UK Met Office: latest UK image in visible and infra-red .
   • UK Met Office: latest European image in visible and infra-red .
   • High resolution visible UK shows a cycle of the last two hours images at 15 minute intervals. It links to a similar cycle of radar rainfall images.
   • Dundee satellite images. Choose from:
     • Geostationary satellite images. Choose SEVIRI and then pick year, month, day, time and channel from the menus. Channel 12(North) and Colour are likely to be the most useful. This site requires you to sign up for a (free) login.
     • Search by area. Click the top left and bottom right of the rectangle you want to see. Then pick the satellite, the date range of interest and whether to show a list or thumbnails. Click Query database to get a list of suitable images. Pick one and choose the channel you want to view, which varies from satellite to satellite.
   • NASA's MODIS United Kingdom/Ireland subset covers the UK in resolutions from 5km to 250m. As the images are posted during our evening they are no use for planning flights, but are good for post-flight analysis or simply as a record of the weather for that day. Use the buttons at the top of the image panel to find the day you want. Dates are shown in Julian (yyyy/ddd) and American (mm/dd/yy) formats. Note: the day's page is installed before its image content becomes available, so if you look at MODIS around the time that the images are made you'll see today's page with blank images.
4. Check the soundings:
   • RASP forecasts for Great Britain using the viewer. See also parameter explanations, and the RASP home page.

Now you have enough information to plan a task and alternates.

NOTAMS

With the task planned you must check the NOTAMS for flight restrictions and warnings.

NOTAMS from NATS

The following summary assumes that you're flying a closed task from Gransden Lodge that's entirely within the London FIR and that you do not intend to climb above cloud base. If any of these assumptions are untrue you'll have to modify your NOTAMS request accordingly.

Go to the National Air Traffic Services Ltd web site. This is free but requires registration.

You need to request a NOTAMS and then a UK Narrow Route brief. To minimise the amount of irrelevant information specify:

• a briefing ID. Accept the default.
• Select SNOWTAM, ASHTAM and BIRDTAM briefing content
• the date and time of the flight. The time must be UTC
• EGSC (Cambridge) as your departure and an airfield near the furthest point of the task as the destination.
• VFR traffic
• Validity period for the date you'll fly and times as 1000 - 1900 UTC
• Narrow Route Width as the distance in NM from EGSC to your farthest turn point and round it up a bit
• upper FL as the likely cloud base for the day, e.g. 050 for a 5,000 foot cloudbase

Leave all other boxes on their default values and click Submit to generate a NOTAMS briefing. Scan through the briefing. Mark any hazards on your map and you're ready to declare your task to the Duty Instructor and go.

These suggested settings should give the required results but check them carefully. I normally use NOTAMPlot and these directions are adapted from the NATS site as it was when I last used it in anger: it has been redesigned since then and not in a way that helps glider pilots. I think the way I've suggested you set the route width and destination should cover anywhere you're likely to end up while you're on task. If GRL is not at one end of the task, then set the departure and destination points to either end of the task and adjust the width so that anywhere you intend to go to either side of this line is covered.

NOTAMS via the NotamPlot graphical tool

Another way to check NOTAMS is to use the excellent NotamPlot tool, which plots NOTAMs on a map of the UK. This requires that you have installed the latest version of Java, which is a free download from the Oracle Java Technology site. You need to download and install the Java SE Runtime Environment package. Once that's done, download and install NotamPlot. You'll need to visit AvBrief and sign up for a guest account before you can use it because that site is the source of it's NOTAM data feed.

Hazards near Cambridge

If there are NOTAMS for any of the following, check their websites for launch schedules:

• Bello Mondo launch high altitude met balloons near Offord Darcy, about 5 miles away.
• CU Spaceflight launch high altitude met balloons from a park just inside the west edge of Cambridge.
• EARS launch high power rockets near Ellsworth. We're barely 3 miles away from their launch site.
• Random Engineering launch high altitude met balloons from the EARS launch site.

Cambridge Gliding Club

This section contains direct links to:

• member accounts
• the webcam